Across America

I've been waiting a long time to be able to say this, but just last month I loaded up all my belongings, strapped my car onto a trailer, and simultaneously said goodbye to my home on the east coast of America and set out on the roadtrip of a lifetime. 

For the past few years I had called Saint Augustine, Florida home.  I used it as a homebase to explore the trails and waterfalls and winding roads of the Blue Ridge and Smoky mountain region, all while living in the cool little town that St. Aug (used to) be.  This gave me access to a good job and decent wildlife and waterways to shoot while hanging around home, and served its purpose.  North Florida is exploding though, absolutely bursting at the seams and quickly turning into just another metropolitan armpit of the eastern seaboard of the like i've been living in for the entirety of my adult life.  A few months ago I found myself in a really creepy situation... getting hassled by people, stumbling into horrible situations with straight up evil people.  Sometimes you have to step back and hear the world speaking to you, and I was in one of those rare phases where the world seemed to be screaming at me to leave, day in and day out yelling at the top of its lungs that I was done and to move on.  So I bucked up, set the plan in motion, left a great job, great friends, and all in all a great life behind.  But it was a cool few years, and I stumbled onto a hotbed of Import tuner heads and unexpectedly ended up thick within that scene there, which was a cool little surprise... but enough of that, Florida is in the past now, and 2500 miles behind me. 

After spending so much time in the mountains of the east, and enjoying them and the road tripping that came with exploring the region, the decision was to set up in Salt Lake City, Utah.  SLC basically puts us in good proximity to many different landscapes, which was my main focus... it leaves the desert just a few hours to the south, the California coast within 10 hours to the west, right next to the rockies of Colorado, and the unexpectedly amazing landscape that is northern Utah rockies and Wyoming.  I never imagined the scale of the ranges surrounding the city here, the few hikes we've pulled and drives we've had here so far are surreal, so much more serious than anticipated.  Forget everything else and there is a nature junkies playground bordering this entire city.  I based the location on this fact, from our old home to the blue ridge mountains was prime roadtrip distance, anywhere from 7-12 hours by car is in our wheelhouse.  Now we have far more variation in landscape and cultural diversity, and have quickly fallen in love with the open road of the west that is perpetually begging to be driven and traveled at every opportunity.     

We took our time and I drove through the night, every night, on the drive out, which made it really cool because we would just kind of chill and take it slow during the day switching driving and dipping into strange midwest towns to check out the people and places.  We left Florida, then hit Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, and finally Utah.  Shit got weird, several times, to say the least.  Middle America lived up to the hype, no doubt.  But let me say that there were some really cool people and places as well, somewhere along the line we ended up catching a sunrise in a town called Concordia which was amazing and warm and welcoming... the place was frozen in time, an American treasure where the people smiled and had shops that hadn't changed since the 50's.  I remember walking down their mainstreet probably looking absolutely insane from so much time on the road and an all time lack of sleep, but I stumbled around that town looking for foreign cars laughing my ass off.  The only car dealership was a few Ford dealerships and all that was on the road there were Fords and Chevy's.  It was really tripping me out, not to mention the fact that I was towing a slammed Japanese sports car from 1993 with giant exhaust pipes on my trailer which in that town looked like some sort of hovercraft.  After that cool little town I think the insomnia and paranoia started breathing on my heels and my memory gets spotty at times.  We ended up in a place called Mound City, where it felt like I was back in FL with redneck boys in big flashy pickups vibing me and my car and just staring at me with that "get out of my town" look that you just can't mistake.  I was so strung out I didn't care, and there were far too many people just absolutely stoked when we got into conversations and felt comfortable enough to let them know we were driving across the country.   

I'll never forget the first night rolling into Salt Lake and realizing we were basically coming over the Wasatch range at an elevation over 8K, and just rolling down massive mountains that seemingly never ended.  After crossing the country with barely any sleep this was a surreal and incredible sensation, to say the least. 

It was all I hoped it would be and more.  There's no turning back now, that trip made my love for the road so much deeper and there is no denying that it has now become undoubtedly where I want to be, whenever possible. Heading to Colorado, then possibly California in the next month or so, but my eyes are set on southern Utah for the time being.  I had my rig out and working the entire trip, and have lots of photographs to edit.  Until then I will be dropping shots in journals, my gallery here, and my other sites on the web.  Check my bio here for the links. 

Here's a few from the road.

Wyoming, Storm beyond the Gas Store

Atlanta Sunrise

Heat Strike, shot leaving Florida
Midwest, foggy sunrise
Wyoming formation
Sunrise over the Pateau
Open Road